How it works
The group-stage rules, how to read the bracket and leaderboard, and how you're ranked against everyone else.
How to read the app
Three screens, one flow:
- 1Build your bracket on Picks — rank every group and pick your way through the knockouts to a champion.
- 2Track it on the Bracket and the live group tables as real results come in — your picks light up green when they pan out, red when they bust.
- 3Climb the leaderboard — see exactly where you stand against everyone else.
The group stage
48 teams are drawn into 12 groups of four. Every team plays the other three in its group once — a win is worth 3 points, a draw 1, a loss 0.
When you fill out your bracket you rank all four teams in each group. The top two of every group advance automatically (that's 24 teams). Then you choose exactly 8 of the 12 third-placed teams to fill the last Round-of-32 spots — same as the real tournament. The bottom team in each group is out.
- 1A gold rank means the team is currently in the top two — through automatically.
- 2A green rank marks a third-placed team currently holding one of the 8 best-third spots.
- 3Rows are tinted green when your pick is on track and red when it's busted, against what you predicted for that team.
Reading the bracket
Once the Round of 32 is set, your knockout picks play out on the bracket. Each card is one match — two teams, with the side you sent through highlighted. As real results land, every pick is marked:
- 1Highlighted row + — the team you sent through won and advanced. The greener glow is the team you picked to win this match.
- 2Struck red + ✗ — your pick lost. (When the real team that took the spot is known, it replaces the row and your wrong pick shrinks to a struck tag.)
- 3The Live badge and bright outline mark a match in progress — rows stay neutral until it's decided.
Winners advance left-to-right through the rounds — Round of 32 → Round of 16 → Quarter-finals → Semi-finals → Final — and the further a team you picked goes, the more it's worth (see the table below).
How you're ranked
The leaderboard ranks every bracket against the real tournament, and it works in two phases.
During the group stage
Before the knockouts begin, you're ranked by how many of your 48 group predictions (12 groups × the 4 positions in each) are still on track — i.e. each team you correctly have advancing or going out. Higher is better; if two people are level, fewer busted picks wins, then it's alphabetical.
Once the knockouts begin
From the Round of 32 onward, the leaderboard switches to total points — round-weighted, so a team you correctly send deeper is worth more (the table below). Highest total wins; ties are broken alphabetically. The top three carry a gold rank.
How scoring works
Scoring is round-weighted advancement. You earn points for every team you correctly send to a round — the deeper the round, the more each team is worth. We only score whether a team reached a round; the actual match scores never affect your points, and you keep scoring even if your bracket diverges from reality.
| Reaching… | Points per team |
|---|---|
| Round of 32 (each team that reaches it) | 1 |
| Round of 16 | 2 |
| Quarter-finals | 4 |
| Semi-finals | 6 |
| Final | 8 |
| Champion | 12 |
A flawless bracket — every team in the right round, all the way to the right champion — is worth 148 points. Follow the running totals on the leaderboard.
How teams really qualify (FIFA rules)
Each team plays the other three in its group once. A win is worth 3 points, a draw 1, a loss 0. The top two of each of the 12 groups (24 teams) plus the 8 best third-placed teams advance to the Round of 32.
If teams finish level on points
FIFA applies these tie-breakers, in order:
- aMost points in the matches among the tied teams
- bBest goal difference in those matches
- cMost goals scored in those matches
- aBest overall goal difference
- bMost goals scored overall
- cBest conduct (fair-play) score — fewest yellow and red cards
- aHighest team in the latest FIFA / Coca-Cola Men's World Ranking
The 8 best third-placed teams are chosen the same way across all groups: points, then goal difference, then goals scored, then conduct score, then FIFA ranking.
One honest caveat about our standings
Our live group tables compute every tie-breaker we can from the match data — head-to-head, goal difference, goals scored. We don't receive card data, so the conduct (fair-play) step isn't something we can calculate; in the rare case a tie reaches that point, we fall back to FIFA world ranking. It almost never changes a result, but we'd rather tell you than pretend.
Source: FIFA, “World Cup 2026 groups: How teams qualify and tie-breakers” and the official FIFA World Cup 2026 regulations.